“I have been too ready for you both till nothing is left. And surely, though I pity your brother, yet so long as he pitieth not himself, but keepeth that bloody Percy, as I told him then, yea as a coach-companion and bed-companion,—a proud, profane, costly fellow, whose being about him I verily fear the Lord God doth mislike, and doth less bless your brother in credit and otherwise in his health,—surely I am utterly discouraged, and make a conscience further to undo myself to maintain such wretches as he is. This Jones (?) never loved your brother, indeed, but for his own credit, being upon your brother, and thankless, though bragging. But your brother will be blind to his own hurt.... It is most certain till first Enney (?), a filthy, wasteful knave, and his Welshman, one after another—for take one, and they will still swarm ill-favouredly—did so lead him, as in a train; he was a towardly young gentleman, and a son of much good hope in goodliness. But seeing that he hath nourished most sinful proud villains wilfully, I know not what other answer to make.” Then, partly relenting, she adds in a postscript:— “If your brother desire a release to Mr Harvey, let him so require it himself, and but upon this condition, by his own hand and bond, I will not; that is, that he make and give me a true note of all his debts, and leave to me the whole order and receipt of all his money for his land, to Harvey, and the just payment of all his debts thereby. And, by the mercy and grace of God, it shall be performed by me to his quiet discharge, without cumbering him, and to his credit. For I will not have his cormorant seducers, and instruments of Satan to him, committing foul sin by his countenance to the displeasing of God and his godly true fear. Otherwise I will not, _pro certo_.” This was a condition which, as Mr Spedding observes, was hard of digestion for an expectant Attorney-General. It was not complied with. But we need not attempt to follow these obscure transactions further; and here we may part company with Lady Bacon. In justice to her let it be added that, if she scolded her son Francis, she could assert his claims boldly before others. In a reported conversation with Sir Robert Cecil she does not scruple to hint that he is but ill used by his powerful relatives. She little understands what manner of son she has; she says truly that he is thinking _nescio quid_, but she is not without a certain degree of motherly pride, as well as motherly tenderness, for him.